


crossing the line

by foxmagpie



Series: little gifts [14]
Category: Good Girls (TV)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Rio POV, Rio's Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-30
Updated: 2019-07-30
Packaged: 2020-07-27 09:26:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20043697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxmagpie/pseuds/foxmagpie
Summary: Rio considers the way that his and Beth's relationship is crossing the boundaries he's carefully maintained with other women. Also: Rio/Annie meeting, a late-night Christmas visit, and a confrontation with Dean.It’s not like the women he’s usually with ain’t like her in some ways—he doesn’t like dumb women, doesn’t like needy women, doesn’t like overly emotional types, and Elizabeth isn’t any of that, either. But he also doesn’t like mamas and housewives, which Elizabeth is. It’s unsettlin’ thinkin’ those parts of her might be the ones that have unraveled him, but it makes its own kinda sense.Rio’s been attracted to the women that can handle themselves in his world, but he’s always known they wouldn’t be interested in handlin’ the box with Marcus and the sisters, and that the women who were interested in that wouldn’t put up with the guns and the tire irons and the parts of him that thinks to drop fingers and ears off in the mail.Elizabeth’s a goddamned enigma, and while he likes that he knows all the ways to unravel her, he loves that she’s always surprisin’ him.





	crossing the line

When Rio wakes up, Elizabeth is wrapped up in his arms and his face is buried in her neck. Sunlight pours in through the windows and illuminates everything about her—her yellow hair, her pale skin. She’s fuckin’ beautiful. 

For years, though, Rio’s had his life and himself divided into three separate boxes. 

There’s the way he is with his family, with his ma and his sisters, Marcus and all his nieces and nephews, even Elena. With them he is fun, giving, and loyal. He shoots the shit with them as much as he gives them shit, but he’s never said no to helping them out of a scrape. He plays lotería with the kids and pays some of his sisters’ bills, and still, every now and then, he sits on the couch with his mom in the crook of her arm as she absentmindedly runs her nails through his hair and tells him about the old days. Everything he is he can trace back to these people, to a need to protect them and provide for them—to pay them back for all the ways they’ve done the same for him. 

At work he packs all that up. He’s methodical and he’s ruthlessly in control and he’s got a plan for everything. He has a good time with his boys, sure; he parties with ‘em and shit, but they know he’s always just a moment away from flipping the switch back. 

Then there’s the dating box. Rio has always found it easy to be in the company of women, but he has also found it _ enjoyable_. He likes the back and forth of flirting and he likes taking them out for a good time and he likes taking them back to their place for a better time. With women, he has always been free in his affection. He's a playful guy and a tactile one—two facets of his personality he diminishes while he's at work. He _ likes _ wakin’ up with his body pressed against the body of whichever person was lying next to him, likes feelin’ their skin underneath the pads of his fingers. Whether it’s the moment he’s lookin’ into someone’s eyes as he makes her come, or whether it’s when he’s drapin’ himself over her back to press a kiss to her cheek while she’s laughin’, Rio likes intimacy in all forms but one—the intimacy of the raw truth. 

There’s parts of himself that are put into all three boxes, of course. He can never fully turn off his penchant for mischievousness, and he never lets anyone think he’s not as smart as he clearly is, and most of all, he’s _ private. _ The amount that any person in any one box knows about other boxes is _ limited_. Some of his family knows vague generalities about his work, but that’s it. Most of his boys ain’t even aware Marcus exists. He’s ends most flings ‘cause she can’t handle not being invited to his place, not meetin’ his kid. They always pick up on the fact that there’s more to the story but they never even know what type of story it is. And while it’s not like he hasn’t crawled into the beds of some of the women that cut his cash or even one or two of the rare women that work as his associates, they know the least of all—with them, it’s always been _ just _ sex, the affection dialed back to physicality only.

And then there’s Elizabeth. 

And there's this moment: his arm wrapped around her torso, his hand tucked under her hip, the fresh smell of her hair in his nose, and his morning wood half-hard against her ass. 

He’s surprised to be in this moment. He knows he fucked up and blurred all the lines with her from the first time he started allowin’ himself to touch her at all—that it’s led to her not just peeking, but _ breaking _ in and riflin’ through every box he owns. Shit, his mom is asking him about his novia and his sister popped by unexpectedly twice last week in hopes of seeing _ La Perla_, not to mention the fact that they in this bed naked right now because he’d been so _ wild _ for her after watching her boss up in those meetings last night. Elizabeth's work and she's more than work, and she knows about his family and his family knows about her. 

He’s surprised with himself, yeah, because he’s allowin’ her to exist in all these boxes, but also because Elizabeth has always had her own lines that he’s been careful only to cross when invited. And this? This was one of her lines. Just two nights ago, it didn’t go under his radar that her heart was jumpin’ outta her chest when she crawled into bed next to him. There was a reason that all he did was reach out and rest a hand on her hip.

So. Now he’s awake and he can feel the knobs of her spine against his sternum. And Rio’s rackin’ his memory of last night—and there’s some good stuff there, so he feels his morning wood harden a bit—but he never comes to this moment. He can’t recollect pullin’ her to him, gluin’ himself to her, so he figures it must have been something he did in his sleep, his guard so obliterated that he allowed himself to reach for her when he wasn’t even conscious. 

Fuck. How is it she gets him to do that? 

It’s not like the women he’s usually with ain’t like her in some ways—he doesn’t like dumb women, doesn’t like needy women, doesn’t like overly emotional types, and Elizabeth isn’t any of that, either. But he also doesn’t like mamas and housewives, which Elizabeth _ is_. It’s unsettlin’ thinkin’ those parts of her might be the ones that have unraveled him, but it makes its own kinda sense. 

Rio’s been attracted to the women that can handle themselves in his world, but he’s always known they wouldn’t be interested in handlin’ the box with Marcus and the sisters, and that the women who _ were _ interested in that wouldn’t put up with the guns and the tire irons and the parts of him that thinks to drop fingers and ears off in the mail.

Elizabeth’s a goddamned enigma, and while he likes that he knows all the ways to unravel her, he _ loves _ that she’s always surprisin’ him. 

He untangles from her slow and careful, because as nice as she feels against him, he’d rather have these moments with someone who wants to have ‘em, and the other night told him she ain’t there yet—and while there’s a lotta shit he’s impatient about, this ain’t one of ‘em. 

They still got a lotta hurdles to jump, but they got time—and time is something he’s never had with anyone before. 

* * *

One of the things he aint go no patience for? He’s walking around in her house right now. Rio and Elizabeth can both spy him move from the foyer to that li’l office of his, only to sit down in front of the glare of the computer screen. It’s the only thing lighting up the room. 

This guy's workin’ every day of the week, still failin’ to take care of his people, and now here he is on a Sunday night with four kids runnin’ around in that house somewhere, and he’s what? Fucking around on the Internet? 

Rio could scoff. _ Some father. _

Elizabeth clears her throat. “So… um. Are you taking my half of the cost of hotel out the first cut I’ll get from Fusil, or…?” She’s fiddling with her purse on her lap. 

Rio stops looking at Dean to turn slowly towards Elizabeth, his forehead wrinkled and his mouth smirking. “You serious?”

“It’s just that I, um, can’t pay you right now,” Elizabeth says, eyes downcast, and he knows that she’s humiliated. “Christmas set us back and—”

“Did I ask you for money?”

He knew things were tight for her right now. She was washin’ his cash to repay the debt her sister and friend racked up, and she wasn’t gettin’ a cut until he was repaid. And the dealership wasn’t bringing in money, so that just left her dumbass husband providin’. 

Rio had noticed that she touched a lot of stuff in that toy store on Saturday morning, and that she put everything carefully back to its place on the shelf. Just today he’d watched her finger a necklace at that Christmas Market before pretending she wasn’t interested in it. 

She’d been surprised when he’d led her to the block of tents after they’d gotten some tea and coffee, and he’d shrugged and said, “This place was your cover, yeah?”

He didn’t give a shit about her cover. He was itchin’ for Dean to know he was in her bed and in her head, but he’d noticed every time her eyes locked on the posters advertising the market and figured she’d actually wanted to go. 

Elizabeth bought some little junky trinket and explained it was a gift for Judith, like he was supposed to know who Judith was. It was the cheapest thing she could find at that particular booth. She’d tried being discreet about reading the price tags, but there wasn’t a goddamn thing on that whole block he was interested in except for her, so he’d noticed her every move.

“Oh, I just assumed...” she says, tucking hair behind her ear.

“Well, you was wrong.” 

“Well… thank you,” she says, voice small, and Rio looks away from her, uncomfortable with her gratitude, or maybe with the fact that he has to clarify what’s business and what isn’t, 'cause that means the lines ain't clear for either of them. 

In the window, Dean stands and peers out. He doesn’t see them—all the lights in the caddy are off and they’re parked on the street. Dean draws the shades so that he’s swallowed up and hidden from view—the way Rio would prefer him to be all the time, really. 

“Shit,” Rio says, and he’s gotta laugh a little. “He’s watchin’ porn.”

“What?” Elizabeth asks, and her head snaps up. “How can you—?”

Rio points to the window. “He’s sittin’ alone in the dark on his computer, and he just closed the blinds—after checkin’ to make sure no one was watchin’ him. Dumbass didn’t even notice we _ was _.”

Elizabeth’s quiet.

“Well, he ain’t gettin’ any, I guess.”

Elizabeth’s words are sharp: “Was there any doubt?”

“Nah,” he relents, realizing he’s being too much of a dick. “Just wonderin’ why he’s still watchin’ porn in your house, I guess.”

“We’ve signed the papers,” Beth tells him.

Rio looks at her, eyebrows high, like, _ So? _

“We’ve signed them, and—and he’s going to file them soon,” Beth explains. “We’re giving the kids one last Christmas, and then we’re going to tell them, and _ then_—there’s just an order to things, okay? Dean has a timeline.”

_ Oh, _ Dean _ has a timeline? _Rio nods curtly, but his jaw is still working, and Elizabeth notices it. “You said you wasn’t worried he was gonna take the kids again.”

“I don’t want to be,” she says hurriedly. “But I can’t push it—I have to do everything, _ everything _ possible to make sure—”

“Aight,” Rio says, nodding curtly. “I get it.” 

“Do you?” Elizabeth asks, and she reaches out and grabs his chin and makes him look at her—his own move. 

Rio jerks back a little, an instantaneous reaction, and Elizabeth goes to snatch her hand back, but Rio manages to snap his fingers around her wrist before she gets too far. 

“He aint gonna win,” Rio promises her. “Okay?”

Elizabeth searches his eyes and comes up with nothing. She settles on saying, “I hope you’re right, but... I need you to let me do this until I _ know_.”

* * *

Rio makes good on his promise to hear Annie out. Only he doesn’t exactly let her know to be expectin’ him. 

It’s dark, and he’s leaning on her car in the backlot of Fine and Frugal waiting for her to get off work. He’s a bit camouflaged by all the black he’s wearing, so she startles when she walks up to her car and spots him. A little scream bubbles out of her throat, not unlike the noise Elizabeth made when she’d dropped her groceries all over the floor so long ago. They’re sisters alright, but Annie ain’t got the same quickness or capacity to immediately compose herself.

“Jesus fuck,” she huffs, looking at him across the roof of the car and rubbing her hands together. She rips the driver’s side door open. “How are you staying warm out here? Do the embers from hell just follow you around when you pop back up to earth or—?”

“We got business,” Rio tells her.

Annie disappears into her car and Rio turns to peer down into the vehicle over his shoulder. There’s food wrappers and napkins and god knows what else all over the floor and the backseat. He does not want to sit down in this car, but he’s not sure what the fuck Annie will drag into his car either, so. 

He slides into the passenger seat. 

Annie’s skittish and she keeps glancing around to see if anyone can see them together. “I haven’t been able to wash more cash yet. Didn’t Beth tell you—” 

“That aint what I’m here for,” he says, carefully placing his hands on his knees so that he touches at little as possible in this car, but that doesn’t stop his feet from resting on—shit, who knows what, but it had crunched a bit. There’s a very obviously old DQ Blizzard sitting half uneaten in the cupholder. Goddamn, he hasn’t come from hell—he’s just entered it.

“You can’t just pop up and demand a meeting,” Annie says, and her hands are a little shaky on her steering wheel. “Anyone could be watching.”

Rio just shakes his head. “And here I thought you’d be jumpin’ to have a meetin’ about them hormone meds.”

“What?” Annie says, and she finally looks at him fully.

“Yeah, see, your sister was goin’ on about—”

Annie glances out at the darkened parking lot. “Can we talk about this somewhere else?”

_ What the fuck? _

“It’s just—my boss. I’m, um, on thin ice with him and I really need to, like, smoke a bowl and relax, okay?”

Rio squints at her. She’s all wound up. Annie’s face is all open and vulnerable, exposin’ everything, all her nerves and anxieties. Rio shrugs. “Pull into the parkin’ lot across the street, then.”

Annie starts up the car and garbage aint just littered around her car—it comes blastin’ out her speakers. 

“What the fuck is this?”

“Train, obviously,” Annie hollers over the noise, zipping out of the parking space. 

Rio reaches down and punches the radio off. 

“Drops of Jupiter? She acts like summer and walks like rain? Reminds me that there’s a time to change?”

Rio stares at her blankly.

“Really? Nothing? Wow. Okay.’’ Annie drums her fingers on the steering wheel while she waits for an opening to exit the parking lot. “So. Um. The meds.”

When the last car flies by, Annie eases into the turn lane, then darts across the way so that they park in front of a dark and empty office supply store. She starts digging around in her center console. “Is that something you can, like, get? 

Rio nods, and she looks at him in disbelief. 

“Shit. Thanks, Beth,” she says, blowing a kiss out into the universe. “I’ll never judge who you let stick it to you ever again.”

Rio ignores that. Annie pulls out a small box, and inside is a canister of pot, some papers, and a lighter. Rio just blinks, watching her prepare a joint.

“Do you, uhhhhh, want some?” she asks, holding the joint out to him before she even takes a hit. 

Shit, maybe she’ll be less annoyin’ if he’s stoned. He takes it from her and lights it. He exhales the smoke into her car, and it actually smells a little better than before. 

It’s been a minute since he got high; he just prefers alcohol, generally, and there’s somethin’ about smoking that makes him feel like he’s 16 again. He suspects Annie feels about 16 all the time, though. 

They pass the joint back and forth a few times, sittin’ in silence. 

“So…” she says, taking the joint back from him once more. 

“So I can get the meds, but it’s a waste of my time and my crew to just get one recurrin’ dose for your kid,” he says as Annie takes a long drag of the joint. He feels himself start to relax; he’s still crawling out of his skin in this car, but the blood isn’t pounding in his ears anymore. 

Annie coughs and sputters after her hit. “You came all the way here to tell me you can’t do it? Like, I know you can literally murder me, but _ full offense_: fuck you, man.”

“I ain’t say that,” Rio said, smirking and taking the joint back from her. He rolls it between his fingers before he takes another hit. “I said I came to talk business.” 

Annie makes a face, jutting her lip out and furrowing her big ol’ brows. “God, how does Beth put up with you? Do you, like, get off on being annoying?” 

Rio rolls his head back, laughing easily. The weed has definitely hit him fully now. “A li’l.”

“Well, jeez, I get it now. You’re basically the same person,” Annie mutters. 

Rio hums a vague response.

She snaps her fingers right in front of his face. “Communicating with you is like talking to my turtle. Spit it out already, Jesus. What do you want to talk about?” 

“How she put up with _ me_? Shit, you a trip.”

Annie sighs and giggles a bit, relaxing into her seat. “She barely does. God, she loves any opportunity to give a lecture.”

Rio licks his lips, imagining it, imagining shutting her up in the middle of one. He don’t wanna get bothered sittin’ here in her sister’s car, though, so he returns to the subject at hand. “Yeah, so, I need you to find more clients.”

“Huh?” Annie asks, not connecting the dots. Elizabeth’s much better at following along in a conversation that bounces around, but then again, judgin’ by Annie’s eyes, she’s stoned now, too. 

“You gotta find clients for the meds. Make it worth my while.” He scratches his neck and looks around her car. He doesn’t really trust it, but— “You got any snacks in here?”

“Brother, what _ don’t _ I have in here?” Annie asks. She leans over him and pops the glovebox. It falls open and she’s got a stash of jerky, ho-hos, and twinkies.

Rio scowls. “How old is this shit?”

“Brand new, my friend. I go through them _ quite _ fast,” she nods in a self-satisfied way. “And my car’s broken into a lot. Gotta restock often.”

Rio shakes his head, laughing, but he takes a twinkie. “Don’t think I had one of these since I was a kid. They garbage, you know? Straight sugar.” He tosses the treat to Annie.

“That’s what I like about them,” Annie says defensively, ripping it open and taking a much-too-large bite. 

“Aight, aight,” he says, and he takes the bag of jerky and starts munchin’ on it. 

She swallows. “How many clients do I need to find?”

“We’ll start small so… oh, fifteen?” 

“Jesus,” Annie says. “_That’s _ small? Where am I supposed to find them?”

Rio shrugs and finishes chewing. “That’s your job.”

“Well… how much am I getting paid?” She takes another bite.

“Nothin,” Rio says. He eyes her twinkie and decides, _fuck it_. He pulls one out of the glovebox and tears away the plastic. 

“_What_?” Annie demands, she’s still got a mouthful of yellow sponge cake, so crumbs start flying onto her steering wheel. “'_Nothing’_?”

“You in the red, sis,” he says, holding out the plastic wrapper of his twinkie to her, unsure of what to do with it. “You ain’t makin’ any money til you finish payin’ me back.”

“I thought I’d get some, like, benefits if you two were boning. This sucks.” Annie rolls her eyes and tosses Rio’s garbage into the backseat. Rio needs to get out of this car. 

“Jesus, who raised you?” he asks, frowning.

Annie bursts out laughing. “_Beth_.” Rio clucks, remembering, and Annie sobers for a second. “When she wasn’t busy trying to raise Dean at the same time.” 

Rio shifts in his seat and starts chewing on his twinkie so he don’t have to respond to that. He stares straight ahead at the overly bright and badly designed advertisements hanging in the window of the store. 

“God, I just want her to move on from him already, just let him _ go_,” Annie sighs. “Not that I’m sure you’re much better. No offense!” She adds the last part when his eyes flash at her. “You can’t blame a girl for hoping for better for her sister than the guy that sends body parts through USPS.” 

“Mail Boxes, Etc.,” he corrects. “Cheaper.” They both burst out laughing. 

“I’m just saying. You guys can hook up as long as Beth’s playing Poison Ivy or Queen Crime or whatever,” Annie says, finishing off her twinkie and looking at him expectantly, waiting to see how he reacts. “But I’m not expecting to see you at Easter, you know?”

Rio doesn’t move. That ain’t really somethin’ he’s thinkin’ about. 

“I mean, that might not be something _ you’re _ worried about—but I guarantee _ Beth is_. I mean, she’s got 40 years of history playing June Cleaver, right? And her kids are gonna get older and smarter and when that happens—Bonnie’s gonna hang up her hat and dye some eggs. “ Annie stares at Rio, waiting for him to break, to reveal _ something_, but his face is a mask. “So, Clyde, how interested are you really going to be in her when she goes back to being PTA Mom of the Month?” 

“So, you in or what?” he asks, and he can feel his jaw starting to clench, so he makes an effort to relax it, forcing his face to go slack. 

“I just don’t want Beth to get hurt. After everything with Dean, the bimbos and the fake cancer—” Rio doesn’t move his face, but his eyes dart to the corner to look at Annie. She doesn’t notice. “I just want her to be happy.” 

“Am I settin’ this thing up or not?”

Annie leans over to look at him closer, but gives up when she realizes it’s a bust—he’s giving her nothing. She sighs. “Yeah. I’m in.” 

* * *

“Precioso,” Sonia coos, pulling out her phone to snap a picture of Rio and her two-year-old daughter, who is conked out on Rio’s chest on the couch. “You’ll want to send that to _ La Perla_, hermanito. She’ll melt.”

It’s the quiet time after Christmas dinner has wrapped up, quieter still because most of the family is gone. Miriam’s family is in Texas, Verónica’s twins are with her ex, and Marcus is still in Tampico til the end of the week. Sonia’s wife, Felicia, and her son, Julián, are in the dining room working on building the Star Wars lego set Rio brought for him. Felicia’s parents were over, but they’ve since left, and his ma snores on the opposite couch, exhausted from entertaining. The TV hums in the background.

Rio rolls his eyes. “Stop callin’ her that.”

“Well, it’s not my fault that all I know is that she’s blonde and wears pearl necklaces.”

“She don’t wear pearl necklaces,” Rio says, thinking about how Elizabeth’s string of pearls currently sits in the drawer of his bedside table. She just wears this simple little gold number now. 

“Should I call her La Rubia then? Or how about Blanca?” Sonia asks, sitting next to him on the couch and curling her legs up underneath her. She reaches out to run her hand along the soft, downy hair of her daughter. 

“Yo, do me a favor,” Rio says quietly, ignoring Sonia but careful not to wake Camila. 

“‘Please’?” 

“_Por favor_,” Rio emphasizes. “Gimme the remote. Ma fell asleep watching the Hallmark Channel.”

“She loves that shit.”

“It’s garbage,” Rio says. “Straight basura.”

Sonia tilts her head. “Hmm, you’d think you’d be a little more receptive to snowy winter love stories about men that just need to find the right woman to coax them from their sad bachelor lifestyles and heal their cold, dead hearts.”

“Shit,” Rio scoffs. “You savage, you know that?”

Sonia grins. “I’ll change the channel _ if_…”

“No,” Rio says. He doesn’t even know what she’s going to ask, but she’s going to ask somethin’, and it’s gonna be terrible. 

“Oh, come on!” she hisses. “I’ll give you three choices.”

Rio leans his head back onto the cushion and grimaces. “No.”

“Okay,” Sonia says, not listening to him and, barreling ahead to give him the options. “You can either… tell me her name. _ Or _ send her esa foto. _ Or _ tell me one random fact about her of your choosing.” 

Rio shakes his head minutely, and Camila shifts around. He’s gotta be more careful. 

“Fine. Suffer, then,” Sonia says, and she stands up and starts to leave the room. “I’m going to make some tea.”

“Green?” 

“Yes, but not for you.”

“For someone that’s so happy, you an unusually cruel woman.”

The front door opens and Verónica comes in from the front porch, where she’d been smoking a cigarette.

“Thought you quit,” Rio says, judgment etched on his face.

Verónica sighs. “I don’t wanna hear it. Shit’s stressful right now.”

“Money?” Rio asks.

“Nah. It’s Malachi. He’s getting remarried, and I guess I have feelings about it? Who knew.” She exhales loudly. “And Ramona and Roz _ love _ her, too, because she’s just soooo cool. Plus, a provider just quit to go work for Kaiser—they pay better, of course. But... yesterday I had a MAB for a fuckin’ _ twelve-year-old_.”

“Shit,” Rio says, running his fingers softly up and down Camila’s back. “I’m sorry, Vee.” 

She waves a hand and flops into the armchair in front of the fireplace. “It’s not the first time. Won’t be the last. It’s just hard—now that the twins are older, it’s just—You know, they’re _ eleven_. This little girl was barely older than them. Shit’s scary. Babies having babies. Or I guess babies getting abortions. Whatever.” 

“You gave that li’l girl her childhood back,” Rio says, trying to soothe her. Verónica responds with a weak smile.

Sonia comes back into the room and dunks her tea bag in and out of her mug. She notices Vee curled up in the chair tugging at her sweater sleeve. “You okay, sweetie?” 

“You really didn’t make me tea, huh?” Rio asks.

Sonia shoots him a harsh look, then nods over at Verónica like, _ Are you serious right now? _

“I’m fine,” Verónica lies. “I’m just a little sad, and now that Ma’s asleep, I don’t gotta pretend. She’s already so emotional because all the kids are gone this year.”

“Mmm,” Sonia says, and she walks over to Verónica and sets her mug down on the mantel to play with her sister’s hair. “Sounds like you could use something to cheer you up. I think Chris could help with that.”

Rio narrows his eyes. 

“He was just going to tell me something about La Perla.” 

“Ooh,” Verónica singsongs. “Actually, that _ would _ cheer me up.” 

“You really gonna play that dirty?” Rio asks Sonia. 

“Shit, Chris, if Marcus were here, I’d have already interrogated him.” Sonia begins braiding Verónica’s long, blonde hair. “Your roots are coming in, sweets. Time for another hair appointment.”

Verónica mumbles something in response and Rio runs his free hand, the one not holding Camila against him, across his jaw. 

“Please, Chris,” Verónica begs, shooting puppy dog eyes at him. “Think of it as a Christmas gift for your poor, lonely, spinster sister.”

“Oh, callaté,” Rio shoots back at her. “Pretty sure I got you somethin’ already.”

“And, while very much appreciated, paying off her credit card does not count as a gift from the heart,” Sonia points out. “You’ve learned nothing from the Hallmark Channel. It’s all about the _ personal _gifts, Chris.” 

“Fine, I’m tired of fightin’ you bitches. You ruthless,” Rio says. “I’ll tell you her name, but you don't get no follow-up questions."

Sonia peers over the back of the chair to look at Verónica. Their faces are both mischievous, but they say in unison, “Okay, deal.”

“Aight, you ready?” They both nod eagerly, and he sighs. “Her name’s Elena.”

“Shut up!” Verónica says. “You are not going to have only two serious relationships in your whole life and have them _ both _be named Elena. That’s too much.”

Rio shrugs, amused. “I guess I got a type.”

“Is that really her name?” Sonia asks skeptically.

“Would I _ lie _ to you?” Rio asks.

“Yes,” Sonia says, before he’s even finished asking the question. “Yes, you would.”

“I swear,” Rio promises. “She spells it different, though.”

Verónica grins, reimagining her concept of the mysterious pearl necklace woman now that she has a name. Sonia quits braiding Verónica’s hair and walks over to the coffee table and grabs the remote. “Alright, fine, you held up your end of the deal—what do you want to watch?”

“Anythin’ but Hallmark,” he says, and so Sonia flips the channel—but it’s a commercial break, and it’s _ the _ commercial.

“That’s her!” Sonia squeals so loudly that Rio’s mother startles awake. Unfortunately, Camila sleeps on—so Rio’s locked on the couch to sit through this. “That’s _La Perla_!”

Rio freezes. 

Elizabeth’s voice seems to fill the entire fuckin’ living room, the entire _ house_: “—come on down to the New and Improved Boland Motors—”

“You’re datin’ the lady from the cheesy car commercials?!” Verónica squawks. 

“¿Qué?” asks his mother, fumbling to sit up. 

“—imported teas and coffees from around the world—”

“That’s her, ma, that’s the girl Christopher’s dating!” Verónica explains.

Consuelo leans forward, eyes wide, and drinks in this absolutely embarrassing image of Elizabeth in front of a giant inflatable gorilla. “How do you know?”

“—our flexible hours will suit any woman’s schedule—”

“Because I saw him flirt with her at Chuck E. Cheese,” Sonia explains. “Before I knew it was a _ thing_. She’s memorable—it’s the—”

“Giant tits?” Verónica suggests. 

“Hit the road, Jack!” Elizabeth says on the TV, shoving the extra out of the frame.

His sisters burst into laughter, but his mother is just staring at the screen mesmerized, even though it’s now flashed to a new commercial. 

“Does she put the _ vroom vroom vroom _ back in your engine?” Sonia asks, eyebrows raised. Rio doesn’t look at her, though—he just stares blankly at the television, which has betrayed him. 

“Ay, we’re just kidding. She’s pretty, hermanito,” Verónica says reassuringly. 

“She’s _ beautiful_,” his mother insists, putting a hand to her cheek. “I like her.” 

“Her name’s not Elena!” Sonia huffs. Rio jerks to look at her, and she’s got her phone out, and her face is all scrunched as she tries to read something. “Her name’s Beth Boland and she’s _ married_.”

Sonia holds out the phone toward him, and he sees that she’s on the Boland Motors website, on some About Us webpage which features the pictures and biographies of Elizabeth and fuckin' Dean. 

“Christopher?” his mother asks, voice nearly breaking. 

“She’s gettin’ divorced,” Rio says, because as much as he doesn’t want to tell ‘em _ anything_, it will break his mother’s heart if she believes that Rio is having an affair with a married woman. “They practically divorced. Just gotta file the papers. 

“Are they divorcing because of _ you_?” Sonia asks.

Rio’s lips thin to almost nothing. _ “No.” _Carefully, he stands, holding Camila to his chest. She rouses a little bit, but Rio rubs her back to try and lull her back to sleep. “I’mma put her down in the back bedroom.”

He disappears from the living room down the hallway, and he paces back and forth in what used to be the girls’ bedroom. Now it’s got a crib and a day bed, plus a toybox and a small desk. Rio doesn’t even know how to react because he’s never—not once, _ ever _—been in this position before. 

His back is to the door, so he doesn’t immediately register that his mother has peeked into the room.

“Come here, mijo,” Consuelo says, and she holds out her arms. Rio hesitates, then gives up and walks into the hug. Consuelo tries to infuse it with _ meaning_, but Rio breaks away early and rocks his jaw. 

“I’m aight,” he says.

“I know,” Consuelo says, reaching out to pat his cheek. “You always are, aren’t you?”

She gives him a look like she'll pretend that this is true for his sake, and Rio breathes out a little laugh. Consuelo smiles at him. As much as she’s dying to ask questions, she doesn’t. She just says, “It was a nice commercial. She seems like she has a good head for business.”

Rio’s lip twitches as he runs his tongue over his teeth, just the smallest hint of something like a smile. 

“Yeah,” he agrees, and he walks out of the room back into the living room, where Sonia has crawled onto the arm of the chair Verónica is sitting in, and they’re both hovered over a phone.

“She has four kids?!” 

“Jesus,” Rio says. “F’real? How did you even—?”

“Facebook,” Verónica says, like it’s obvious. “Class of ‘97. She’s older than you, huh?”

“Girls, don’t tease your brother,” Consuelo says, bustling into the room after Rio. “He’s sensitive about this, okay?”

“Ma, no—”

“Well, she seems pretty progressive, at least,” Verónica says. “She posted an article about cultural appropriation around Thanksgiving. You got a woke girl, Chris, eh?”

“She posts a lot of those Tasty videos, with the recipes,” Sonia tells their mother. “Does she really make them, though?”

“I dunno,” Rio says, agitated. “Get off Elizabeth’s page—”

“_Elizabeth_?” his sisters ask in unison, their voices high and amused. “I thought she was _ Beth_.”

Just then, Rio’s phone buzzes in his pocket and he takes it—walking outside to the front porch as he does. It’s one of his boys, reportin’ that there’s an issue. One of their clients is tweakin’ out, furious about the lack of deliveries since the FBI raid. He’s at Boland Motors, threatenin’ to throw a rock through the goddamn glass. 

_ Shit_, Rio thinks, looking back through the front windows at his sisters still pouring over Elizabeth’s newsfeed. _ What if they find out about the raid? Fuckin’ commercial. _

He’d been so careful to make sure his family didn’t know about his goddamn case and trial—luckily they weren’t regular watchers of the news, but it also meant he’d had to make up some creative lies when his mother had heard some rumors in church. He wouldn’t put it past Sonia to try and show up at the dealership pretendin’ to be interested in a car—but she wasn’t gonna find Elizabeth. She was gonna find Police Line: Do Not Cross tape. 

That's a problem for another time, though. Rio walks back into the house after he hangs up and tells them he has to go deal with a work issue.

“Christopher, it’s almost ten, and it's Christmas. You can't possibly have a 'work problem,'” Verónica says. “Come on. We’ll stop. You don’t have to go.”

“Nah, I really got a thing,” he says, but his voice is clipped. “I’ll see you.”

They open their mouths to protest again, but Rio’s already out the door.

* * *

Afterwards, Rio’s got a busted lip, some scratches on his face, some minor bruises to his ribs, plus bloody knuckles—but the other guy’s worse, and he fuckin’ knows that if he pulls this shit again, he ain’t gonna be around to tell the story. 

Fuck, they really need to get shit up and goin’ with Fusil, but they were playing the long game, making inquiries to ensure that Fusil wasn’t bullshittin’ and that he really had a solid, smooth operation runnin’. 

Rio thinks about going to Verónica’s place, having her bandage him up like usual, but he don’t really want to be around her. Plus, he remembers she’s dealing with her own shit. He ain’t in the mood to cheer her up, or to hear her reprimands or even apologies. He just wants to be alone. 

Rio drives to a bar, some random one, and gets drunk. The bartender eyes his injuries but doesn’t say anything. But it’s depressin’ in there, with all the other flushed Christmas outcasts, and soon enough he’s ordered an Uber before he even realizes exactly what he’s doing. 

He stumbles a bit crawling over the low brick fence that separates her backyard from the path in the back alleyway—which is all paved for families to take their dogs on walks and shit. Fucking ‘ burbs.

Her whole house is dark. Her kids are upstairs, prolly happily dreaming about their new toys, and Dean’s there, too, probably watching a goddamn porno on his cell phone or something. Maybe he’s sleeping. Elizabeth’s room is dark, and no wonder—it’s nearly 1 am. She’s definitely sleeping. 

He raps on those French doors anyway, and it takes a minute, but Elizabeth peers through the sheer curtains. He sees she’s holding a baseball bat, and he grins at her. 

The lock clicks and the door swings open, and Elizabeth stands before him in some cotton pajama set with little reindeer on it. She’s even wearin’ slippers. Why she gotta dress like a little old lady sometimes?

“Hey, ma,” he says nonchalantly. He nods at the baseball bat which she’s left propped up against the bed. “Who else was you expectin’ to come _knockin_' in the middle of the night?”

“What are you _ doing _ here?” she hisses. 

“Wanted to see you.” He shrugs one shoulder and steps close to her so that he can push her hair out of her face.

“What happened to you?” she asks, suddenly concerned. She pulls him deeper into the bedroom, shuts the door, and flips on a lamp. She studies him closely, runs her thumb along his lip and he flinches. “Are you okay?”

“Had worse before.”

“That’s not what I asked,” she says, and she beelines to the bathroom and opens a cabinet and starts pulling out first aid supplies like peroxide and bandaids. 

“I ain’t wearin’ one of those,” he says.

“Your cheek’s bleeding,” she replies.

“Don’t care,” he says, and he sinks onto her bed. It’s so _ soft_. Elizabeth wets a wash cloth, dabs a cotton ball with the peroxide, and walks over to him. 

“This will sting,” she says after she’s wiped his cuts with the cloth. He hated every second of it, but he just watched her face while she worked. Her eyebrows are all knit tight and her eyes are serious, and he grins. “Don’t do that—your lip’s bleeding again.”

Before she has a chance to reapply the cloth to his lip, he kisses her. He can taste the metallic of his blood, and he knows she can, too, but she doesn’t pull away. When he breaks the kiss, she touches her mouth and then looks at the blood that’s left on her finger.

“You’re drunk,” she says, scrambling to get to her feet. She reaches for the doorknob. “You need some water—”

“Nah, stay here with me,” he says, and this startles her enough that she has to shake off the comment. 

“No, no, I’ll just be right back—” 

“Stay, Elizabeth,” he repeats, and she sighs in defeat. He pats the bed next to him and she sits, searching his eyes. He looks away. “I’m aight, really.”

“What happened?”

“‘S not important,” he says. 

“Rio—”

“_Elizabeth_,” he says sharply.

“You’ve shown up bloody and drunk on Christmas,” Elizabeth hisses. “I’m just trying to take care of you!”

“Yeah? You wanna take care of me?” he asks with a suggestive lilt to his voice. “‘Cause I got some ideas.”

“My whole family is home.”

“We can be quiet,” he says, leaning in to kiss her. He feels a tightening in his groin. He doesn’t want peroxide and bandages—he just wants _ her. _ “You ain’t never had sex while your kids was home? How you got four kids then?”

He chuckles, but Elizabeth pulls away, and he knows she isn’t worried about them. She’s worried about Dean. “I don’t think…”

“My whole family knows about you,” he admits, and shit, he hadn’t been planning that, but he finds that now he wants to see her reaction, to watch her process this. 

Elizabeth looks at him through narrowed eyes. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, they know about you,” he repeats. “Your name and your dealership and your fuckin’ marriage and your four kids, and that you post all those fuckin’—fuckin’ recipe videos.” 

“Who do they think I am?” she asks slowly.

“They know,” he says once more, and she gets it now, what he’s trying to tell her.

Her breath hitches. 

“My ma thought we was havin’ an affair,” he says, laughing. “That I wrecked your marriage and shit.”

“Oh,” Elizabeth says, unsure of how to respond. 

Rio turns to look at her, and her face is scrubbed of makeup and her breasts are saggin’ without a bra—and all he thinks is how much he wants to touch her. The PJs really are ugly as shit, though. He’d like to get ‘em off her, and he reaches out to undo her buttons.

“We can’t,” she says gently. “Not here, not now—not with you all busted up…”

Rio chews his cheek. He’s not exactly showin’ off his best side. He’s forgotten who Elizabeth is. After a fight, after his adrenaline is pumping, it’s not uncommon for him to end up in someone’s bed—usually one of the revolving girls who come and go and come again, one of the superficial flings he has whether neither of ‘em ask many questions of each other. But that ain’t gonna happen tonight. 

“Aight,” he says softly, letting it double as an apology. He can’t stay here, though. “I’ll go.”

He stands but is interrupted by Elizabeth saying, “No.”

“No?” 

“You can’t drive.” 

“I didn’t.”

“Well, then, you need sleep,” she says rationally. “I’ll drive you in the morning—early. Before the kids get up.”

Rio sighs. 

“Let me finish cleaning you up,” she says, and he gives up. She wipes the blood off his knuckles and reaches up to his face to apply the peroxide to all the cuts. He tries not to flinch, but he hates that shit. She foregoes the bandages, and when she’s done, she says, “You have blood on your shirt.”

“Not mine. Or most of it, anyway.”

She closes her eyes for a beat, processing. “You need to take it off.”

He blinks at her and then nods. When the shirt’s halfway over his head, she gasps quietly. 

“You’re _ hurt_,” she says, and she presses a hand gingerly to his chest where the purple bruises have formed. 

“Yeah, ma, thought we covered that with the peroxide and shit,” he says, looking down at her. He gives her a small smile. She’s still touching him, and his skin is hot. Elizabeth meets his eyes and she looks worried, but there’s something else there, too—she reaches up and kisses him again, snaking her hands from his chest to his back. He kisses her deeply, slowly, with no urgency because he knows that’s all it will be, and he wants to enjoy it.

Elizabeth breaks the kiss finally and her eyes are dark. “Can you be quiet?”

“Nah, ma, you already said—“

She presses a finger to his lips, cutting him off. “Can you be quiet?”

He pulls his lip into his mouth, raises his eyebrows at her, and nods. “I can. Can you?”

“That won’t be a problem,” she says, and she presses her lips to the hollow of his neck, and then his sternum, and then his hip as her hands work at his belt and his jeans.

She drops to her knees, and Rio kneads his fingers into her hair. She works his pants and briefs down his legs, then looks up at him with those big, blue eyes before she takes him in her mouth. 

_ Fuck_. 

* * *

“You gonna tell me why you’re tailing this guy?” Aviles asks, hands in pockets. They’re standing a few blocks down from some krav maga gym, on the li’l side street where Dean had parked. It’s dark and cold. They can see their breath hit the air. “I didn’t learn anything interesting. He comes here a lot, he watches a lot of porn on his computer. But I’m gonna charge extra for the secondhand embarrassment I got watchin’ that guy hit on women at the grocery store and the post office, aight?”

Rio chuckles and hands Aviles a stack of cash. “Thanks, man.”

Aviles tilts his head back and forth like he’s thinkin’ about sayin’ something else. 

“You got something you wanna say?” Rio asks tersely. 

“I thought she was taken care of is all. We all did,” Aviles explains. Rio had known that Aviles would see Elizabeth if he was tailing Dean, but he also knew Aviles was good at keeping his mouth shut. “Just assumed after you fired her and she got you arrested...” Aviles doesn’t ask the question, but it hangs in the air anyway. Rio’s never let a rotten egg get so out of hand. 

Rio clicks his teeth. 

Aviles gets the message. He shrugs and slaps Rio’s hand, pulling him into a half-hug. “Alright, man. I’ll see you later.”

Stalking off into the darkness, Aviles disappears and Rio waits. He leans casually on the hood of Dean’s car, scrolling through his phone. He’s got a text from Jen, some girl he’s slept with off and on for a long time. She makes it easy: she doesn’t give a shit about any of his personal details. He figures she must’ve just ended something—he hasn’t heard from her in a pretty long time. He exits out of the message without responding and shoots Elena a text, asks her how her parents are doing and how Marcus is liking being back in Tampico.

Rio hears Dean arrive, dragging his feet and breathing heavy, but he doesn’t look up from the message he’s composing. He suspects it will get under Dean’s skin, and it does.

“What are you doing here?” he asks angrily.

“Yo,” Rio says, sending the text and sliding his phone in his back pocket. “How’s the krav maga goin’, man?”

Dean wipes sweat off his brow and pushes past Rio to open his trunk and throw his bag in the car. 

“I’m not scared of you,” Dean says. His face is still all red and he’s huffin’ and puffin’.

Pushing off the car, Rio assumes a fighting stance. He jabs at the air playfully, then leans back against the trunk, laughing. “You ready to defend yourself now, huh?” 

Dean sneers. “You’re not going to touch me.”

“No? Why not?” Rio asks, cocking his head to the side. He moves his hand to rest on his gun, hidden by his shirt—he has no plans to use it, but Dean clocks it and recoils before he gathers himself. 

“Beth won’t keep forgiving violence to her family,” Dean says simply. “She’s got limits. And I think having to explain to our kids for the second time how _ Daddy _ got hurt?” He shrugs. “I don’t know. Why don’t we test it and see?”

Rio’s face turns serious and he stares at Dean through half-closed eyes. Now this is something he wasn’t expectin’.

“I ain't here for that,” Rio says, squaring his shoulders and sliding his hand off his gun and into his pocket, as if that’s what he intended to do all along. 

“No? Then what are you here for?”

Rio looks around, makes sure they’re alone. There’s no one around, though. On one side of the street there’s an ice cream shop long since closed, and on the other there’s a park, abandoned in the winter cold.

“You talk a big game, like you interested in how you affectin’ your kids,” Rio says. Dean crosses his arms, waiting for Rio to continue to elaborate. Aight, fine, he’ll play. “You wanna tell me you was thinkin’ about limits and how it was all impactin’ your brood when you was steppin’ out on your wife? When you was pretendin’ to have cancer? When you threatened to take ‘em from their mom?”

Gritting his teeth, Dean spits, “Why don’t you get to your point?”

Rio takes the corner of his bottom lip between his teeth and nods. “You ain’t gettin’ custody, man, so stop holdin’ it over her head.”

Rio had talked to Gretchen, who’d hooked him up with a good family law attorney. He had multiple avenues of ensurin’ Elizabeth didn’t lose her kids, from a legitimate lawyer to bein’ willin’ to pay off custody evaluators and even judges. If paying 'em off don't work, he's got other methods of making people do his bidding. But he knows Elizabeth would hate him spendin’ money on her like that, so he figures tellin’ Dean will ensure he’ll never actually have to, and that she’ll never actually have to know—so long as he makes it clear that it’s in Dean’s best interest to keep his fucking mouth shut. 

Dean scoffs. “_That’s _ what you’re here for?”

Rio just blinks at him.

“Buddy,” Dean says, and Rio twitches—he hates that fuckin’ word. “I’m not taking the kids.” 

Rio doesn’t think Dean’s lying—he’s staring him straight in the eye, after all—but he knows he’s missing something. He raises one eyebrow. 

“No need. We’re not getting divorced,” Dean says, and a nasty grin spreads across his face. 

Rio thinks of Annie saying _ God, I just want her to move on from him already. Just let him go. _ He doesn’t actually think Elizabeth is still with Dean, but that doesn’t mean there ain’t a rock in his stomach. She’d told him they’d signed the papers, that—oh. That _ Dean _ just needed to file them after they told the kids. 

“You guys sure talk about a lot of personal stuff for business partners,” Dean says, and his voice is smugly triumphant. He _ knows _ way more than he was ever letting on to Elizabeth, Rio’s sure of it. “Or do I just feature regularly in your pillow talk?”

_ There it is_.

“You seem pretty confident,” Rio relents. “Considerin’ I was just in your bed with your wife last night.”

Rio smirks, remembering the feeling of Elizabeth’s warm, wet mouth around his cock. 

Dean blanches, but waves his hand as if this means nothing. “Is that supposed to intimidate me? You think you’ve won because you’re sleeping with her right now? Okay.” He laughs hollowly. “Dude, she’s scratching an itch. You’re kidding yourself if you think that she’s going to choose your whole lifestyle over what she’s always known. She’ll get scared and come running back to safety—and I’ll be waiting. You don’t _ know _ Beth like I do.”

Rio aint gonna play this game. He’s got no interest in it. He just nods and turns on his heel, ready to walk away. 

Dean calls after him, “She said it herself, you know.”

Rio stops and looks over his shoulder at Dean. He’s a tall man, but he never looks it. He’s pudgy and doughy all over, the kinda man that slouches and never stands up quite straight.

“I asked her what it was about you, you know. Was it the danger? The tattoos? Do you listen more? Do you encourage her?” He laughs, like these are absurd things for a woman to be attracted to. Rio wonders how the fuck this guy got four other women to sleep with him. “It wasn’t any of that. Wanna know what she said?”

Rio just shakes his head and keeps moving, the gap between them expanding. But he can still hear Dean when he calls out, quoting, “‘I just really like having sex with him.’”

“Yeah, that sounds just like her,” Rio shoots over his shoulder.

“Don’t believe me?” Dean shrugs, self-satisfied. “Ask her yourself.”

Dean knows Rio can't do that. They both in a gridlock. Neither of 'em want Elizabeth to know what they're up to.

Rio turns the corner and makes his way to his car. The wind whips through him. It the type of cold that pierces through clothing and gets bone deep. 

**Author's Note:**

> This chapter kind of blew up on me! Hope you enjoyed it—if you did, tell me what part you liked best! :)


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